


A man is the sum of his memories. A Time Lord even more so.

by ilwin



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:34:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23563120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilwin/pseuds/ilwin
Summary: The Doctor forgot his past lives. Will his companions manage to get them back before it's too late?
Kudos: 3





	A man is the sum of his memories. A Time Lord even more so.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks a lot to SmudgeThistle for beta-read.

“I’m done here. How about the back engines, Turlough?”

“I just need to do the last checks, then run warm-up for the night,” answered Turlough, half inside of the engine space. “You don't need to wait for me, I'm sure you’re starving already,” he added, knowing his colleague from space docks too well.

“Thanks! See you in refreshment zone!”

_Hardly; and you know it_ , thought Turlough scornfully. Even when he needed to work in docks for longer, he barely went to refreshment zone to eat there. Partly because of the various workers and mechanics always present there and partly because the meals weren’t very tasty. He wasn’t a permanent employee of the docks though, so his oddities fortunately weren’t doing him bad at his job. Not that he would ever care about such things.

The dock fell in silence, with occasional rambling and clattering from where Turlough was finishing his work on the spaceship.

When a voice suddenly sounded right next to him, he almost bumped his head against the machine as he started in surprise.

“So… finally alone?” said a deep female voice in sort of a lazy tone.

Turlough scrambled out of the engine space and saw a woman with luxuriant hair, dressed in travelling clothes and boots, both significantly worn out.

“Hello, Ginger,” she prolonged the words in a playful manner and leant on the side of the spaceship. “I hope you're finished here because we need to leave.”

“You belong to this ship?” Turlough watched the foreigner with shock. “It still needs to warm up during the night so there's no chance on leaving now. But you’re not the captain are you? I spoke to him…”

“Oh, hush, ginger boy,” she came closer, putting a finger on his lips to silence him, “we probably don’t have much time left. Of course I’m the captain but not of this ship, honey. No more questions, we must go. Come on…”

Turlough laughed shortly, half derisively and half shocked, and turned away to reach the signal bell on the wall for calling dock security. “You’re not allowed to be here then. I’m certainly _not_ going anywhere with you, whoever you…”

“Oh, but I think you _are_. Turlough,” she hissed as he felt a sudden pressure on his ribs. She was holding a gun there.

Then he blinked in surprise when realising she called him by his name. “Who are you? What do you want?” he asked, trying to think out how to escape.

“I said there's not much time left, now move on!” she said much more sharply, poked him with the gun and pointed in direction of a side entrance with her head. “My ship is in the next dock.”

It was rather small spacecraft; old, but still in a pretty good state anyway. Turlough couldn’t help himself but automatically sort the probable type and year of production in his mind as this was his hobby and main job for years now.

She pushed him in the seat of co-pilot. “Buckle up, honey, I’m a fast driver,” she smiled teasingly and sat on the seat of the pilot. “And we’re quite in a hurry.”

Turlough immediately made an attempt to stand up and escape, but the next second her gun was pressing his jaws roughly from below as she leaned closer to him. “No follies, darling, we’re flying to save the Doctor,” she said and the statement surprised Turlough long enough for her to start up.

The old spaceship took off with a sensible shake and Turlough rushed to fasten his seatbelts.

The woman pushed few more buttons, moved some levers and then, leaning back in her seat contentedly, she glanced at him.

“Now, Turlough, I believe you had a few questions, didn’t you? It’s time for them now.”

It took a moment until Turlough caught back his breath and then he spread out his arms baffled. “What the hell is going on? Who are you? How did you get in Trion docks unnoticed? There were no regular landings and no more emergency landings other than the one we were just working on… And did you just say _the Doctor_?”

She smiled confidently. “In the order, you’ve asked — we need to save the Doctor, I’m River Song, I can get almost wherever I want without anyone noticing me if I don’t want to be noticed and yes, I just said _the Doctor_. The foolish old Time Lord, that you happened to travel with once as well,” she replied, apparently enjoying his astonishment and confusion.

“Are you… Do you travel with him now?” It wasn’t the most intelligent question Turlough ever let out, but considering the circumstances, it could have been much worse as well.

“Sometimes,” she said softly. “It’s complicated, Ginger, never mind that. Now — do you know about regeneration?”

Turlough was fighting hard to keep his mind sane. “I…” He didn’t answer, not sure what exactly was she asking about. Details about regeneration? How does it work? Any regeneration? Time Lord regeneration? Or technical stuff?

River Song grinned, still looking amused. “Time Lord regeneration,” she specified as if she was reading his mind. “Do you know Time Lords can regenerate? Because I’m afraid the one we need to save is not the one you once knew anymore.”

Turlough looked at her, hundreds of questions on the tip of his tongue and then he just shrugged and gave up. “Yes, I know about regeneration,” was the only thing he said before he just leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes, hoping that he would wake up in his bedroom on Trion, finding out this all had been just some crazy dream.

He fell asleep for a while and when he came around, River was busy with what seemed to be the landing procedures.

Nevertheless, she immediately noticed that Turlough woke up and smiled widely. “Hello, Ginger, we’re almost there,” she pushed one more lever and pressed some buttons. “Hold tight, darling, landing can be little bumpy.”

“Worse than the TARDIS piloted by the Doctor?” sneered Turlough and they exchanged an understanding look.

Then the engines gave another mighty roar, resembling the one when leaving Trion and with rather strong jar the ship became still. They landed.

“Come on, Ginger, the Doctor needs you,” River spurred him to action when Turlough stood still.

“Where are we?” he asked, releasing himself from seatbelts and finally moving to the exit.

“Oh, just another planet, what does it matter...” River waved his question away and pointed to the high, glass looking building nearby. “The Doctor is there. I hope Mrs Jones was successful.”

Turlough realised he had left Trion directly from the docks, his work clothes still on, shabby and dirty from all kinds of oils and greases. He automatically tried to wipe his hands on trousers and immediately thought how silly it was, considering that his hands surely wasn’t the most grubby part of himself right now. “Fine. And what exactly do you want from me?”

“Memories,” said River, walking at brisk pace towards the building. “He was meddling with the alien technologies… _again_ … and even though he saved the day — _again_ —, the recoil of the machine had a strong impact on his mind and he forgot.”

“Forgot what?” asked Turlough, when they reached the building and River pushed the door open.

_This is one weird place_ , thought Turlough. _Nothing to be seen around, just this building, no people of the planet around, the building was unlocked… Maybe I am dreaming after all._

River looked at him. “Almost everything,” she answered. “Meaning — all his previous lives. That’s why I searched for you to help him gain back the memories and so his previous lives too.”

The building inside looked just like any other office building on any at least a bit advanced planet, with simple equipment and almost no decorations at all.

They walked through the entrance hall, stepped in the lift and River pushed the button.

“Me?” wondered Turlough. “But I...”

River smiled a bit patronizingly. “Oh, not just you of course, darling. Various people who would know some of his previous incarnations.”

The lift stopped and the door opened. There was a short corridor leading to the only door present on the floor.

“But how did you find us? How did you know about me?” Turlough followed River, still not fully convinced he could trust her.

“From TARDIS database,” replied River and opened the door they've just reached. “Now… Let's see if we made some progress.”

They entered surprisingly spacious room with high ceiling full of things that mostly appeared to be various machinery.

Close to the doors was a makeshift bed with a person lying on it and two women sitting by on something that looked like bigger plastic boxes.

When River and Turlough walked in the room a middle-aged woman with curly ginger hair walked towards them. “It’s not working,” she said worriedly. “And he fell asleep again,” she added, quite for nothing because they just came to the bed, and saw that a young looking man, who was lying there, was obviously fast asleep.

Turlough doubtfully knitted his forehead. “That’s the Doctor?”

River just patted his shoulder. “You’d get used to it,” she noted drily and turned to the other woman. “And what about you, Mrs Jones?”

The addressed woman was blonde and her middle-age has obviously passed some time ago, but she still looked rather vital and healthy. “Nothing. I told him about the Master and Brigadier and Bessie and Axons and Peladon and Alpha Centauri, but nothing worked. He was just frowning and then fell asleep again. It doesn’t work anymore,” she added, looking pretty desperate.

River tutted. “What is it, Sweetie…” she muttered more just to herself, then looked at Turlough. “We must wait until he wakes up again then. When he does, you try it, Turlough. I’ll come back later to see…” She was already turning away again, but Turlough grabbed her arm and stopped her.

“Wait,” he said sharply and not quite friendly. “First some answers, Miss Enigma. Like — why there are no people of this planet to be seen around, where are _you_ going right now, how should I know this is really the Doctor and you’re not just trying to deceive me and if all you said is true, what the hell should I do?”

River turned back and smiled a bit. “You’re alert, I like that,” she said, easily releasing her arm from Turlough’s grip. “Alright then, few more answers for you… This is the spot where the main conflict took place so everyone who survived, tried to get as far from here as possible. But they could be back soon once they would see it was over and we better be gone at the moment, so that’s where I’ve been heading right now — to look around if it was still safe there. The Doctor might have saved their butts, but I don’t believe they would be willing to thank him,” she noted and Turlough sighed.

“Tell me about it,” he said.

“As for the Doctor himself,” River went on, “just wait until he gets up and ask, I’m sure you’ll recognize him after a while. Or you could just ask Mrs Jones, she met him in this incarnation before,” she added a bit spitefully.

“And finally to your task here — just tell him about something you went through together — events, some planet, anything you had in common, starting with your name of course, because he'd have no idea who you are, having fifth incarnation’s memories still gone at the moment. It should help.”

She paused and then let out a short hiss of displeasure. “Although it seems some incarnations’ memories are blocked somehow… Well, we’ll deal with it later. I’ll be back soon,” she said in a tone that sounded a bit like “be good, kids, and don’t open the doors to big bad wolf”, and left.

Turlough looked after her thoughtfully for a moment and when he turned back, he found out that both women were watching him curiously.

The ginger one broke the silence first, friendly sticking her hand towards him. “Hi. I’m Mel. Mel Bush. I used to travel with the Doctor — actually two of them,” she smiled. “Sixth and seventh incarnation,” she added as if it was something of vital importance.

Turlough reluctantly shook her hand. “Turlough,” he said shortly. “Are you sure this is really the Doctor?”

The other woman nodded ardently. “He is! He’s getting just younger all the time it seems!” She went to shook Turlough’s hand too. “I’m Jo. Jo Jones. Jo Grant at the time I’d been working with the Doctor — third incarnation,” she added more specifically too. “So you travelled with the fifth incarnation? How did he look?” she asked curiously, pointing at one of the plastic boxes nearby to indicate Turlough might take a seat.

He remained standing and just shrugged. “Normal. Young, blonde. Wore cricket clothes all the time. And a stick of celery on his lapel,” he added. He wanted to go on but the voice from behind interrupted him.

“Ha! What kind of a fool would wear a vegetable on his clothes?”

The trio turned around to see that the Doctor woke up and raised a bit on the bed.

Turlough came closer. “You did. If you really are the Doctor. I know about regeneration, but…” He didn’t finish and just shook his head doubtfully.

The Doctor managed to raise into a sitting position and watched Turlough in equally searching way. “I am the Doctor indeed. Although it seems some bits of me got lost in time vortex. Should I know you?”

“I’m Turlough,” said Turlough and made an indefinite gesture covering his shabby working clothes. “You would rather remember me in my school uniform than any other clothes,” he added and only then he sat on the box, drawing it closer to the “bed”.

“We first met at Brandon Public School in England, on Earth. But I’m not human, I was exiled there. I… I actually tried to kill you at first,” he admitted slowly and both women exchanged surprised look.

“Why?” The Doctor knitted his forehead with concentration. “Did Time Lords send you? Are you Gallifreyan?”

Turlough shook his head. “I’m from Trion. I wanted to go home so I promised to Black Guardian I would kill you. Do you remember Black and White Guardians? Blokes with strange hats? I was a bit of a fool to promise and trying to do such a thing, that’s for sure, but I wanted to go back home so much.”

“And... you did at the end,” said the Doctor rather just informatively than as a question.

“After a while,” shrugged Turlough. “With the rescue ship that came for people on planet Sarn. Sometimes I wished I went on travelling with you,” he admitted with a sigh.

The Doctor was frowning slightly, trying to dig out of the darkness at least the slightest sign that he was beginning to remember. “I wore celery?” he asked after a while.

Turlough nodded then looked around in sudden inspiration. “Do you happen to have a bit of a paper and pencil here somewhere?”

“I think I saw some here,” Mel hurried to the small cabinet nearby. “Jo, do you… Ah, here it is! Notebook and a pencil,” she returned, handing Turlough requested items. “What…?”

He grabbed it almost impatiently, resting small notebook on his knees and without hesitation began to sketch in it briskly.

Both Mel and Jo leaned closer to him so they could see what he started to draw, but the Doctor just watched Turlough’s face carefully, trying to recognize his former travel companion.

“There,” finished Turlough in a while and handed him quick sketch. “White shirt with question marks on the collar, white cricket sweater and a beige coat. And striped trousers. You actually really liked cricket. And brought us few times to see a match,” he added, his bitter face expression clearly showing amount of excitement he had had for such events.

For a moment the Doctor studied the sketch carefully. Then he looked at Turlough. “Us? There were more of you travelling in the TARDIS at the same time as you?”

Turlough nodded. “Tegan — she was human, Australian. And Nyssa was from Traken. Some planet that was destroyed as far as I remember. Tegan never actually believed me,” he added informatively.

“Tegan and Nyssa… I met them shortly before…” The Doctor stopped and rubbed his forehead. “Hm. I remember them from fourth incarnation's end, but there’s nothing after that,” he shrugged and dropped his look back to the sketch.

At the moment River returned.

“Everything clear and safe so far,” she reported, walking in. “Hello, Sweetie,” she cooed when she reached the couch, seeing the Doctor was awake. “How is it going?”

Then she noticed the picture in his hands. “Nice sketch,” she noted and looked at Turlough. “You drew it?”

“It’s just a quick doodle,” he shrugged and looked at her with a serious face. “He didn’t recall the fifth incarnation either. I tried to make the sketch so he might remember himself better but it didn’t help,” he informed.

River looked at the picture once again. “So that’s the Doctor you travelled with?” she asked, half surprised and half amused.

“There's something you don't know, Mrs Always-In-Charge?” Turlough couldn't help himself but tease a bit.

River pretended she didn't hear it and turned to the Doctor, shooking her head discontentedly. “Well, that makes three lives still blocked, Sweetie. That’s…”

They started to discuss possible reasons of memories not returning back and Turlough lost interest in listening of what he did find to be just empty talk. And because it seemed as if he wasn't needed at the moment, he began to wander around the room to take a closer look at the place, soon losing others from sight and earshot as well.

The room mostly reminded of some kind of experimental laboratory placed in a very spacious storeroom with lots of different devices, smaller ones put on the tables and boxes, the bigger ones making half partitions of the room.

Turlough walked lazily around devices, watching them with sort of professional interest, engineering always being his main field of study and work.

After a while he realized that all machines and devices, be it small or the big ones, seemed to be connected together and it looked like everything was leading to one main device, standing in far corner of the room. It wasn’t the biggest thing there but something in its look shouted _I’m the boss_ loudly. Beside it was some chair that appeared to be connected to the main device with a set of cables leading from the armrests and the headrest.

Turlough moved closer curiously, trying to think out what could be the purpose of the thing and so of the whole room or maybe even of the whole building.

After a while, he reached out the hand to randomly try some lever, but the voice behind him sounded: “Don’t.”

River followed him to look where he had disappeared to and now stood next to him with the face of a governess looking after a particularly naughty child.

“Why?” Turlough turned to her. “What is it?”

“It’s the reason the Doctor forgot his previous incarnations,” she replied. “The device that meant to gain more control over other planets in the universe from here. But that included inhabitants of this planet too of course which they didn't like and a group of them rebelled against the absolute ruler. The Doctor managed to get here just in time, fiddled with the machine and stopped the threat; at the cost of forgetting all his past lives.”

“And how do you know all this? How did you know you should come to help the Doctor? You were here as well?” Turlough was still pretty suspicious of his strange kidnapper.

“I wasn't,” she replied calmly. “I picked up the TARDIS distress call.”

Turlough frowned even more unconvinced. “When the Doctor forgot everything, how could he send...”

“He didn't,” she interrupted now a bit impatiently. “You travelled with him, you should know, he's telepathically linked with the TARDIS. When the memories were lost, his mind pattern changed and the TARDIS automatically called for help.”

“Lucky you were there to hear the call,” growled Turlough sarcastically.

“Luck is not the right word,” noted River with contempt.

“And how did you know that you must bring the previous companions and he would remember?” Turlough went on with questions.

“I didn’t,” she shrugged. Then pointed at the device with her chin. “It should be deactivated but if I were you I rather wouldn’t touch it.”

Turlough made a face. “Luckily you're not me. By coincidence, I have knowledge of engineering stuff. I don’t think I would risk much.”

“This isn’t a spaceship,” said River a bit loftily.

“No, but spaceship is just a part of the engineering field,” sneered Turlough and watched her with a cunning smirk.

“Well if you won’t blow up this building up you can have a look at it, Ginger,” she replied patronizingly.

“Thanks for the permission,” snapped Turlough with irony and turned his back on her, moving closer to the device again.

_Harpy_ , he thought scornfully.

Turlough didn’t return to the others but stayed by the device. He didn’t tamper with it very much so far, just tried to touch some lever here or a button there and besides that just walked around, watching all parts and the nearest attached components.

Later in the evening, Mel appeared, bringing simple food to him. “It’s from River’s ship,” she explained when she noticed Turlough’s doubtful look. “Wanna help with something?” she asked warmly and sat on the nearest piece of room equipment that didn’t look it could be a machine of some kind.

“Like with the dinner you mean?” replied Turlough disdainfully, still hesitating to even just touch the meal.

Mel raised her head offended. “I’m a computer programmer,” she replied drily. “River said you claimed to be good at engineering, but if you need some help with programming...” she paused, watching Turlough — who looked a bit surprised at the moment — with evaluative look, “well…then I might consider helping you,” she finished with a frown.

“Sorry,” mumbled Turlough. “You don’t look much like… electronics specialist,” he finished lamely and Mel rolled her eyes with a sigh.

“No… I suppose I don’t. I get that all the time,” she admitted with a shrug and then looked at the device. “What do you want to do with it?”

Turlough slowly sat on the ground and finally took the plate with the modest dinner. “I don’t know. I was just wandering around and she said it was the device that made the Doctor forget, so I thought I’d look at it. Maybe if I could find out a bit how it worked, we could help the Doctor,” he replied and slowly bit a small portion of something resembling an Earth sandwich.

“M-hmm,” nodded Mel approvingly and moment of silence followed.

“Did you really try to kill the Doctor?” she asked after a while and it seemed she was deciding the whole time to ask the question.

Turlough shrugged. “I wanted to go home. Can you imagine being exiled on a foreign planet, that’s about thousand times less advanced than your home planet? Alone and lost? Among all the stupid humans…”

Mel started a bit and Turlough cleared his throat. “Ahem, sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“Well, I’ve seen worse and better creatures than people on my travels,” Mel tossed her head. “And what was it you've been exiled for?”

“Civil war stuff. I’d rather not talk about it much,” he said, finishing his dinner. He put the plate on the floor and stood up. “Now, let’s look at this thing. Would you mind help me with it?”

Turlough never had a deep sleep, even less when sleeping at some unfamiliar place, so the finest sound always immediately woke him up. He opened his eyes into the darkness and listened attentively, trying to work out what tore him out of the light sleep this time.

When the night came, he didn't go to others and after Mel had left, he went to sleep on the examination chair, naturally after he made sure that the device is safely deactivated. The mad woman that called herself River still didn’t quite persuade him she was reliable and trustful and when he hasn’t been helpful with the Doctor’s memories who knows what could come to her mind.

Holding his breath he tried to catch the slightest sound that would tell him what was going on.

Then a sudden rattle was heard close by as if someone crashed into one of the tables with the devices, and a series of bangs and cracks revealed that various tools and components were tumbling to the floor.

Turlough reached a hand to small light that was part of the examination chair and switched it on. Feeble light showed a pile of tools and parts from the nearest table and the Doctor, who was just standing up from the mess, looking a bit surprised.

“Doctor…?” Turlough raised his eyebrow. “Did you mean to attack me in my sleep or what?” he asked, pretty amused by the look that took control over the Doctor’s face at the moment.

“I was… I wanted…” The Doctor wiped his forehead uncertainly. “It seems the missing bits are causing cuts,” he said not very convincingly, pointing at the clutter on the floor.

He came closer to Turlough and stopped indecisively. “I can’t sleep — unlike during the daytime. I remembered the drawing so I wanted…” He stopped, recognizing how odd it sounded to wander around in the darkness because of some drawing, but Turlough didn’t look surprised at all. After all, he once travelled around the universe with someone who wore a stick of celery on his lapel.

He pointed at the little box nearby, that Mel used for sitting in the afternoon, to indicate the Doctor might sit down too. “What? You wanted me to do a portrait for you?”

The Doctor made few nervous steps forwards and backwards. “It’s there, it’s there, I know it, but it just won’t come out!” He hissed angrily at himself and then sat on the box while drawing it closer to Turlough so suddenly and fast, that Turlough jerked himself.

“The rescue ship was for you?” The Doctor blurted out the question that seemed quite random.

It took Turlough a moment to realise what rescue ship he meant, while Time Lord didn’t take his eyes off him with kind of a furiously stubborn expression.

“No, it was for people of the planet — Sarn. Vulcano there was about to explode. I called the help from crashed Trion ship that was on the planet. I expected they would arrest me again and probably execute.”

“But you cared for the people of the planet more…” said the Doctor searchingly.

Turlough laughed shortly and bitterly. “Kind of, but that’s not my common character feature if you asked because of that. You would rather remember me as selfish and a bit haughty one. Tegan would give you _essays_ about why am I the worst creature in the whole creation,” he added in amused tone.

The Doctor straightened up on his seat and sighed slightly. “And now you came to help me…” he noted.

“I didn’t have much of a choice, River’s gun was rather convincing,” Turlough sneered.

The Doctor nodded shortly and bit absently. Then he frowned again. “I really wore celery?”

Approaching the place where others were staying, he heard upset voices and when he got closer, he recognized Mel.

“But where did he go? At night? He kept falling asleep yesterday, he couldn’t have gone far away…”

“Did someone kidnap him then?” suggested Jo in alarmed voice. “But how could they get in without us noticing it?”

River was standing with her arms crossed, tapping at the floor with one foot. “No, I would know if someone else had entered the building.”

Turlough came out from behind one machine and stopped by them. “Morning. Any trouble?”

“The Doctor disappeared!” Jo jumped out of his seat, bursting out the news anxiously. “But he’s so weak, what if…”

At the moment, River who were watching Turlough attentively since he appeared, stepped in. “I believe Mr Turlough can tell us exactly where the Doctor is at the moment, can't it, Turlough?”

He grimaced. “What a brilliant guess, Mrs Perfect,” he said sarcastically. “Yes, I know. He came in the middle of the night to my sleeping place, fell over the table with number of various devices and when I woke up because of the terrible racket, he wanted me to draw him a portrait.”

It wasn’t quite true, because there were much more of asking more and more questions, but it came to drawing too at the end.

“You’re a good boy then to hearing him out even if you don’t quite believe he is really the Doctor,” replied River mockingly.

“Wrong. It’s you I don’t quite trust,” snapped Turlough without a smile and turned to Mel. “May I ask you for a little help, Mel? If Mrs I-Know-It-All could do without you for some time.”

“Sure,” nodded Mel, quickly getting up from her seat. “Did you find out something?”

“The Doctor fell asleep on the examination chair, I guess we should get as much as possible from it,” he answered and turned back. “Mrs Perfect can take care of our safety meanwhile,” he added casually over his shoulder to get even with River for her “permission” to look at the device the previous day.

“I’ll make you breakfast,” said Jo helpfully, while River just crossed her arms and tossed her head annoyed.

_Brat!_ she thought scornfully.

When Jo came with breakfast that looked quite the same as the modest dinner the day before, Turlough was just setting something on the main control panel and Mel was busy with some kind of hand-held device.

Then Jo noticed that the Doctor, sitting in the odd-looking chair, was in fact loosely connected to the chair on the armrests.

“What have you done to him?” she asked frightened, almost dropping the plates with food at the moment.

Turlough looked up. “Ah, Mrs Jones… I need some data and I believe this could be the way to get them. If it works,” he added more quietly rather just to himself.

“But is it safe?” she asked worriedly.

Mel looked at Turlough questioningly because she had asked exactly the same question immediately when he had said what he was about to do but didn’t get any answer.

Now he looked from Jo to Mel and back. “Well, we can’t be completely sure but I'm afraid we have no other choice when the memories didn’t work for all of his lives. If there's a chance to get more information we must try it.”

Jo didn’t look very convinced but nodded slowly, placing the plates with breakfast at the nearest flat surface that was empty and didn't seem to be delicate machinery. “How can I help?”

“Well, you could help Mel to collect the data. If we get something out of this trash,” replied Turlough and jiggled wildly the lever that seemed to be stuck.

“Alright,” said Jo reluctantly. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Turlough, he’s Time Lord after all and that’s...”

At the moment Jo’s quiet lament was interrupted by loud metal click from inside of the machine, followed by a few fast beeps and monitor of the device in Mel's hands went on.

All three looked at the Doctor searchingly, but he was still calmly sitting in the chair and sleeping. Only tips of his fingers trembled slightly.

With his hand on a small lever by the side of the main panel, Turlough looked at Mel as if he was unsure about the thing in the last minute.

Mel nodded encouragingly and Jo sighed. “You’re right, Turlough,” she said slowly in kind of a resigned voice, “we must try it, so let’s do it.”

Turlough moved the lever and loud humming started to come out of the main machine. Both ladies sat by the table, writing down whatever appeared on the monitor of the small handheld device, while he stood by the console, pushing some buttons from time to time and moving levers, watching the Doctor searchingly, trying not to miss out any sign of possible danger.

After some time Turlough finally put down all the levers and pushed one last button.

The machine slowly went silent again and for a moment no one moved.

“Is that it?” asked Jo in a quiet voice but then hurried to the Doctor to check his state.

Turlough moved over to Mel. “Did you get something?”

She handed him the papers. “I don’t understand a thing here. It’s all lines and strange marks. If it means something we would need to translate it first and I don’t think we have time for such a thing,” she shook her head and looked at Turlough. “Or do you understand any of these?”

He watched the papers carefully. “It seems a bit familiar,” he said after awhile, not sure if he was just trying hard to see some pattern in it or if it actually rang a bell. “I need to think about it more later,” he added and rubbed his eyes wearily. “I hoped it would be easier. I mean… not that we could fix him with a snap of the fingers but…” He shook his head and shrugged.

“Are you gonna show this to River? Maybe she knows what the marks mean,” suggested Mel cagily, aware of the fact that Turlough wasn’t much keen on cooperating with their “host”.

“It can’t do any harm I guess,” he sighed without delight. “If the Doctor is alright,” he added. “How does it look, Mrs Jones?” he turned back to the other woman.

Jo sat by the chair, holding the Doctor’s hands gently. “He seems to be still sleeping,” she replied. “Isn’t it strange that the machine didn’t wake him up?”

Turlough frowned. “It is... It is indeed…” he mumbled and rushed to the Doctor. He touched his forehead and tried to feel the pulse on the wrists. Then frowned even more and leaned to him, trying to hear the heartbeat of his hearts, one by one.

“Well, I have no idea how the heartbeat of a Time Lord hearts should sound but one probably shouldn’t be weaker than the other, should they?” he said quietly, suddenly much paler in his face.

“Then we must fix it,” said Jo determinedly and before anyone could react she made an attempt of a heart massage.

It certainly looked weird and not much effectively, because the Doctor was sitting on the chair and Jo was more nervous than precise, but she was aiming for the right locations of both hearts and it seemed that it was quite enough, because after a while, the Doctor suddenly took a deep sharp breath and opened his eyes.

“Good grief, Jo, you ham-fisted bun vendor, you could have killed me!” he blurted out and then started to cough wildly.

“Doctor! You remembered!” whooped Jo in delight and tried to hug coughing Doctor.

Mel and Turlough exchanged a bit confused look.

Finally, the Doctor calmed down and got rid of the cough and looked at Jo with a little smile. “I actually never forgot, Jo,” he said gently and then looked at his hands, that were still loosely connected to the armrests. “What’s this?”

“That was for… the test,” replied Mel, hastening to release the Doctor from the chair, while Turlough watched him carefully.

“Did you recall the rest of your past now?” he asked.

The Doctor looked at him and a glimpse of confusion that passed over his face answered the question even before he spoke. “You’re… Turlough, right?” He looked around and nodded shortly. “And Mel. I remember you from my sixth incarnation, but that’s not all, is it,” he said rather as a fact than a question.

The other three just exchanged disappointed looks.

“Well, one less life to remember at least,” said Turlough drily and took the papers from the table. “I’ll go talk to River. I guess you should probably finally eat your breakfast, Mel. And you can give mine to the Doctor, I don’t think I want to eat now.”

“Everything still clear and safe?” asked Turlough when he reached the front part of the room. River, perched on the edge of the table, was busy with something that seemed to be maintenance of her gun.

“Oh, Mr I’m-So-Clever,” she raised her head. “Of course it is. What about you? Everything fixed and the Doctor is saved?”

“Sure. But that would be too easy so I just hit him on the head and he forgot two of his lives again,” snapped Turlough with a serious face.

River slipped down the table. “Nice, I like it exciting!” she said playfully and then noticed papers in his hand. “What’s that?”

Turlough shrugged. “I tried to collect some data about his mind, but it’s…”

River snatched the papers from his hand sharply. “ _What_ did you do?!?” She watched the marks on the paper and looked more and more surprised.

“Do you understand it?” asked Turlough hopefully, while she was shaking her head with disbelief.

“ _This_ is Gallifreyan,” she looked at Turlough and raised her hand with papers. “You can’t understand it, hardly anyone does these days. Actually just a few.”

“But you do,” noted Turlough doubtfully. Then he realised that amount of his knowledge of this woman is very limited. Actually just obvious facts like that she can pilot a spaceship and can sneak inside Trion docks without noticing, and beside that just few more mentions that he got from yesterday chat with the Doctor and that was all. Another thing he realised was, that he could have shown the papers to the Doctor without need going with them to River, who he still didn't quite trust.

River smiled slightly. “Yes, I do. Where did you say you got it?”

Now it was Turlough’s turn to smile. “From his head.”

Following moment of silence was almost vibrating with suspense.

Then River raised her eyebrows slightly. “How?” she asked simply.

“Well, the machine there,” Turlough pointed vaguely behind him, “has also some kind of a testing chair so I thought if I could connect his mind to the machine maybe I could gain some data that would tell us more about his state so we might be able to find out what to do to return his memory. With a little help from Mel, I partly re-activated the machine and adjusted the testing chair and we got this,” explained Turlough, enjoying the fact that he actually managed to think out something that didn't come to mind of Mrs Perfect here.

“Hmmm,” muttered River thoughtfully. “Have you got the faintest idea how wrong this could have gone? The Time Lord mind is extremely complicated.”

Turlough didn’t move a muscle. “Actually, I have. I didn’t tell the ladies to not alarm them, but it seemed to be the only chance how to learn something about his mind when simply telling the memories failed in some cases.”

“Mmmm,” purred River. “You’re even more daring than I’ve thought… I like that…” she prolonged playfully.

Turlough let her teasing pass without reaction and pointed to the papers. “So what is written there if you really understand it?” he couldn’t resist but add a little bit of mocking again.

“It seems to be his thoughts,” she turned her attention back to the papers. “So to say. You can’t transport anyone’s thoughts by the machine of course and even less the Time Lord thoughts….” She went through all marks more carefully, her eyes jumping from line to line quickly. When she got to the end of the notes, she nodded shortly and looked back at him.

“It seems so. But it’s just a bunch of random things, so it probably can’t help us after all, unfortunately,” she concluded and shrugged.

Turlough frowned in concentration. “Are you sure there’s no connection? You know… when he woke up, he remembered Jo and his third incarnation,” he revealed, keeping the way of the Doctor’s waking up back from her; just in case.

“Did he?” River seemed interested and looked back at the notes. “Well, there is some pattern actually, but it’s just leading way from his first to the third incarnation… that was the one previously blocked, that — as you said — he remembered after waking up…” River was thinking aloud, marching slowly backwards and forwards.

Then she stopped and looked at Turlough. “It must be something in the setting of the machine. What did you do with it?”

“Just set it for reading,” shrugged Turlough. “Well, part of it, it’s too big for being it only…” He stopped and just silently watched River for a moment. “Reading is basically accepting isn’t it?” he said slowly and River raised her eyebrows.

“And?”

“Well, you said it was meant to have some impact on the universe, didn’t you? And the impact is giving. If I set it for reading I reversed the flow and…” he stopped again and shook his head. “No, no that doesn’t make sense, what could the machine accept to make him remember back, that’s nonsense.”

“Let’s have a look at it,” said River simply, aiming Turlough back to the centre of the room. “It might be the right way.”

When they came there, the Doctor was awake, talking with Jo and Mel.

“Hello, Sweetie, you’re awake!” River chirped cheerfully.

“His memories about third incarnation returned!” informed Jo excitedly.

“Yeees,“ River prolonged it in her lazy playful tone again. “It seems Mr Turlough found out the right way how to fix it after all,” she glanced at Turlough standing behind her with a stone face.

“It’s still not enough,” said Turlough, knowing her seeming praise is just another teasing. “We need to dig out the rest as well.”

River nodded, handing the papers with Gallifreyan writing to the Doctor to look at it. “Mr Turlough adjusted the machine for reverse running and pulled the memories of...”

“Ha!” The Doctor interrupted her with a beaming face. “So instead of pushing thoughts around in the universe, the machine was pulling them back in my mind! Yes!” He jumped out of the chair with unexpected energy and sprang to the machine's control panel to examine the settings.

Others joined him as much as limited space around the machine allowed it. The Doctor watched it only for a moment before turning to Turlough. “Did you stop the running or was it just the furthest it could get?”

“I turned it off after running a cycle, I wasn't sure if it was doing something at all,” replied Turlough and nodded towards the machine. “Do you think if we repeated it, the other memories might be restored as well?” He was addressing River and the Doctor, but at the same time exchanged a bit unsure look with both ladies concerned about the issues with the Doctor's heartbeat that appeared at the end of the first test.

“I think we should look at the machine together first to double check all settings and eliminate all possible failures,” said River, glancing at Turlough with raised eyebrows as if she guessed what happened before.

The Doctor was already immersed in examining the machine settings, looking much more alive and full of energy than the day before. Soon he took a pen-like device out of his breast pocket and began to exam the machine with it.

Turlough was told by Jo that it was called sonic screwdriver and in her time, it looked a bit different but the Doctor used it quite a lot.

Later River joined the checks using her own device of the same kind.

“Do you need any help?” asked Turlough after a while, feeling a bit useless just standing there, but since the machine's changed setting was mostly his work, he thought that there's no need for him to look at it again. And there was already not enough space for River and the Doctor and the two of them were bumping into each other from time to time. Though River most likely did it deliberately at times as well.

“I must say you did a good job with reversing,” said the Doctor with his head almost inside of the machine. “Did you learnt this after your return home?” He drew himself up and looked at Turlough searchingly.

“Mostly not,” replied Turlough slowly. “Of course I learnt some new things as well while working in docks later, but I knew most of it when travelling with you already,” he said and guessing what the Doctor was thinking, he added. “I was able to partly pilot the TARDIS. In a very limited way of course. But I almost never did it anyway.”

“Almost?” River raised her eyebrows curiously while the Doctor just silently watched his former companion.

“Yes,” nodded Turlough. “I don't think you would need to know details, Prof. Song.” He used her title and name but deliberately in a tone that gave it almost shameful touch.

“If I wanted details, I would search TARDIS database more detailed, Ginger,” scorned River.

The Doctor was already checking the machine again, but in no time he stopped and put the sonic screwdriver back in his pocket. “I think I'm done here. It needed a bit of an adjustment, but otherwise good job, Turlough.”

“Mel helped too,” pointed out Turlough but Mel just waved her hand to indicate her part in it is not worth mentioning.

“I'm done too. All checked and fine, Sweetie,” said River at the moment and nodded to the testing chair. “We can try it again.”

“Should we write down an output data again?” asked Mel.

“I think you could, yes?” agreed the Doctor. “For the case something would go wrong, we might be able to get some clues from it.”

It wasn't necessary though, adjustments that the Doctor made to prior settings of the machine seemed to be enough and after running another whole cycle — this time River operating the device — the Doctor remembered remaining two lives again and everything went by without another dramatic ending of the process.

“Good job, everyone,” said the Doctor, vital and energetic as always in this incarnation, when they left the building, heading to where the TARDIS was standing. “Thank you.”

“And it was about the time,” noted River, pointing ahead where on the distant horizon some sort of a dusty cloud appeared. “It seems people of this planet decided to return here.”

“But what if someone else would like to use the machine for themselves again?” asked Jo worriedly.

“The Doctor disabled it again before we left,” replied Mel.

“... and took few essential components away too, just in case,” added the Doctor mischievously and tapped his left pocket, that gave suspicious metal clatter.

At the moment they reached the TARDIS and the Doctor patted the side of the box gently. “Good job to you too, old girl,” he said softly and then, opening the doors, he turned around to others.

“Right then, time to go. Anyone wants a lift?” he offered with a wide grin.

“Not me,” laughed Jo amusedly. “I'm a bit too old for travelling the universe and saving planets.”

“What?“ The Doctor raised eyebrows. “I said nothing about travelling the universe, I'll take you home directly, at the moment when River picked you up.”

“Yeah, as usual,” Mel grimaced good-heartedly. “Honestly, Doctor! We know your exact piloting skills. I'd rather go with Prof. Song too if she doesn't mind.”

The Doctor saddened a bit and then turned to Turlough. “And you? I can take you back to Trion, really.”

Turlough's look slipped to the blue box and he thought of his former travelling with the Doctor years ago. He knew that the chance of immediate return back on Trion in the Doctor's TARDIS is very little. On the other hand for some more travelling with the Doctor, this is for sure the very last chance. And when he said earlier that he sometimes regretted returning on Trion it was the truth.

“I think I'd like one more ride with the TARDIS,” he smiled and with a short wave to the “girls“, he stepped in the time machine.


End file.
